


If You Fall

by TCGA



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Romance, SnowBarry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:34:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24416704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TCGA/pseuds/TCGA
Summary: The Multiverse Theory states that, everytime you're supposed to make a decision, reality splits into multiple parts. Despite all these alternative realities, Barry Allen and Caitlin Snow have realized that they're the only constant in each other's lives. [One-shot].
Relationships: Barry Allen/Caitlin Snow
Comments: 1
Kudos: 54





	If You Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first upload to Ao3, but I actually wrote this fic back in October, 2017 and posted it to FF.net as my first one-shot, inspired by Pete Kilpatrick Band's song 'American Dream'. I wrote it to be set somewhere between Season 4 and 5, hoping Snowbarry would've happened by then, but I guess someone should go back in time, punch my past self in the face and tell her to run as fan as she can. 
> 
> If you haven't read it already, hope you like it!

_She was a spinning glass heart with a crack running down her side_

_For her falling in love was never enough to bridge divide_

_Build a fire so big that it burns us all_

_Light a fire so big that it burns my soul_

"Almost there, almost there," Caitlin consoled Barry, with notorious angst in her voice, inserting the needle through his abdomen one last time as he laid on the medical table.

Barry let out an agonizing sound when his wound spat a stream of dark blood, sprinkling everything in its wake. Caitlin, whose arm's range of motion was limited under her patient's hand grip, was working hard to finish stitching the deep, ten inches long cut that was battling to stay open. Although the internal organs were safe, remains of the poison from the unidentified metahuman would destroy the tissue as soon as it started repairing the damage.

Once she was done with the last stitch, putting an end to ten of the most stressful minutes of her life, Caitlin placed a clean white towel over the wound.

"It's okay, it's over now," she whispered softly, stroking the speedster's sweaty forehead, since he was still moaning.

"It hurts," he cried out, letting go of Caitlin's arm and immediately grabbing her hand with a force she couldn't blame him for.

"I know. I know… but you need to close your eyes. You need some sleep."

Even though Caitlin's tone was firm, her lip biting habit and some unshed tears were evidence of how hard she was trying to repress her overwhelming emotions. The only thing that seemed to be releasing some of the pressure she felt was her hand stroking Barry's hair, until she had to slow down the pace to make sure her touching didn't keep him from falling asleep.

As much as she tried to focus on Barry's slow but paced breathing, the spooky blood stains on her lab coat sleeves were a strong reminder of their most recent, traumatic experience. The memories of the last couple of minutes flashed before her eyes with no mercy: the exact moment when Barry had stopped answering his comms, Barry flashing into the med bay right after locking the meta in a pipeline cell, Barry falling flat on the floor, the strength Caitlin didn't know where she got from to pick him up and put him on the table, the ugly wound expelling dark poisoned blood like a geyser, the frustration of not being able to use her ice powers to stop a possible infection (not without blocking the bad fluids' exit), screams of pain she had only heard in nightmares, the stupor, that sudden lack of consciousness, her friend's eye movement as the only sign he was still there with her.

Four years. Four damn years and she still hadn't created an anesthetic that successfully stopped Barry's pain. Four years and she was still taking his rapid healing for granted, and hoping that his experience prevented him from getting hurt badly.

For the first time on professional duty, she allowed herself to cry.

She had almost lost him.

A deep sigh made her look down at Barry's face. He was looking at her with half-closed eyes. Once he noticed he had gotten her attention back, he shook his head weakly.

"What is it? The lights?" she asked him between inevitable sobs. "Do you want me to turn off the lights?"

Before she could step away from his side, Barry raised his arm clumsily and placed his thumb on his doctor's cheek, to wipe away a tear. Right after that, he shook his head again.

Caitlin couldn't help but crack a smile at his subtle gesture.

"You don't want me to cry?"

Without even trying to talk, Barry nodded and cracked a tiny smile himself, which just seemed to make that request harder for her.

"I'm going to cover this up, okay?" Caitlin told him, once she felt a little more composed. "Then I'll leave the room to let you sleep."

Barry, who was pale as a corpse from the blood loss, shook his head insistently when she stepped back to take a bandage from a drawer. His heart rate increased abruptly, making the monitor beep loudly.

"Don't leave me," he whined, almost inaudibly.

"No, no. Don't do this," the doctor begged, rushing to his side in panic. "The poison is out of your system, I am sure I let it all out."

Barry looked down at his stomach and squinted his red and watery eyes at the view of his stitches, disgusted.

"You did. I am okay, it's just… please."

He then raised his palm, apparently expecting Caitlin to give him her hand again. Distrustful, she cautiously examined his expression, looking for any sign of the burning pain from the poison, but she only recognized the discomfort that the forceful stitching had left behind, and a supplicating kiddie face. Caitlin had never worked in ER, but she knew that 'don't leave me' tended to be the last sentence that a severely injured patient or a dying one would tell whoever was close at the moment of their demise.

Notoriously relieved, she concluded her scan assuming that Barry was just hurt, weak and a little emotional.

"I'm sorry," he coughed out. Caitlin had to lean closer to hear him. "You deserve better than this."

Caitlin wrinkled her forehead and took a few extra seconds to put a bandage on the wound when she felt his empty look on her. She wasn't in the mood to deal with all the things that had happened in the last couple of the days. The baggage they had been carrying for a year or more had already gotten too heavy to ignore.

Last week, an argument between Barry and Cisco about how to handle a specific situation had some sort of snowball effect; what started as a slight disagreement suddenly grew into voices rising and throwing things from the past at each other's faces. Cisco, in an attempt to walk out with decency, didn't ask Caitlin to pick a side when she saw him stepping into the elevator with a cart full of his belongings. Since Caitlin didn't agree with any of them, she appreciated that Cisco understood that what they did inside those walls was bigger than them and some petty fight. If he couldn't be anywhere near Barry for a while, someone else had to. She had to stay.

Caitlin looked down at Barry's begging hand one more time. She threw her bloody lab coat inside a dirty laundry container and sat on the bedside chair. Then she finally grabbed his hand, intertwining their fingers.

"I left some pizza and jell-o in the kitchen," Barry said, closing his eyes. "I suspected you would find a way to work late again."

Caitlin covered her face with her forearm, pretending to have an itch, so he wouldn't see her face constricted with sadness. It would've been unfair to say that Barry didn't know what he was doing, but it was easy to see that he had never felt more alone. He had spent the last week ignoring the gorilla in the room, acting condescending, making jokes and even bringing Cisco up in some conversations. She knew that, as much as she tried to get him to talk to her, he wouldn't let her in. He wouldn't let her cross the doors of hell, because he didn't want to drag her in with him.

_He was an old chimney billowing smoke in the sky_

_And all the birds in the trees would catch his disease and die_

_Build a fire so big that it burns us all_

_Light a fire so big that it burns my soul_

Once the crying alarm stopped, Caitlin nodded gratefully.

"If you don't fall asleep now, I'll give you a concussion," she threatened him wittily.

"Or fracture me something," Barry joked. "I remember Doctor House doing that when he couldn't stand the pain… in his knee…"

Caitlin drew circles with her thumb on the back of his hand to relax him. Once the silence fell on the room, an empty weight set in Caitlin's stomach. Failing to stop torturing herself, she thought about how Barry and Cisco's feud didn't look as a 'petty fight' once she started remembering the consequences from 2017- her world falling apart, relationships becoming distant, Team Flash reduced to the three people who had initiated it…

Now two of them.

How sad it was to carry a man, who weighted at least 40 pounds more than her, to a medical table because they had no one else to turn to and nowhere else to go?

Although they knew what their future could've been like and changed it, what was happening wasn't exactly good, just less disheartening. At least they were dealing with the consequences and not paying for them. The only thing that hadn't changed was the fact that Barry Allen and Caitlin Snow only had each other. Two more benevolent versions of themselves, but not less broken.

After nodding off for a while, Barry started snoring peacefully. She was now free to get some sleep too. Without letting go of his hand, she bended forward, rested her head on his side and fell asleep.

_I feel your fear it follows me to the corner of the room_

_Does anybody hear the words I say as I fall down?_

Caitlin grumbled when the first ray of light creeped through the window and landed on her face that morning. She refused to open her eyes until the orange inside her eyelids turned too bright to ignore it.

Her first instinct was to get up from the medical table side, but when she tried to do so, she realized that she was lying on her back and not on her stomach.

Startled, Caitlin opened her eyes and sat up, waving her legs.

"Barry?" she gasped. She had taken his place on the medical table.

"Right here."

Caitlin felt the need to strangle him when he laughed at her frantic sighs of relief. He was sitting on the chair she had fallen asleep on. He was still in his Flash pants, shirtless, with his hair pointing in all directions. His skin, at least, had recovered some color.

"I feel better," Barry said as soon as he saw Caitlin opening her mouth. "But you were gonna get a crick in your neck."

"How… is… the wound?" she yawned, keeping the scolding to herself.

Barry stood up and got closer to the medical table so Caitlin could take a look.

"It hasn't healed yet, but you're not bleeding anymore," she told him as she covered it with the bandage again. "Barry…"

"No, Caitlin. I don't regret not taking you with me. That guy almost killed me."

"I could've stopped that from happening! Barry, this is frustrating. I can-"

"You can regenerate, I know. Don't be cocky."

"I am not being cocky, just pragmatic."

Barry took a deep breath and scratched the back of his head. Caitlin had recognized that as an awkward conversation alert a long time ago.

"Cait," he started, sitting on the edge of the medical table and reaching for the cup of coffee that was on the folding table. She gave him a disapproving look when he handed it to her, for going all the way to the kitchen in his state. "Why did you stay?"

"Do I need to recite the Hippocratic Oath?" Caitlin scoffed. "You almost died on me, I couldn't just go ho-"

"I don't mean last night…"

Here we go again. Even though she suspected that Barry was just starting another self-loathing speech, this was the kind of question she didn't want to answer. She didn't want to think of Barry as the only person lonely enough to need her or the only person she had left. Nevertheless, whenever she tried to dive into her reasons, an intolerable explanation overlapped all the others. One that had always unconsciously tied her to him, something she didn't need to think that much about until Barry asked specific questions, an unjustified hope of reducing that space between them and…

Her defenses were too strong to even put it into words. Ironically, she knew what she wanted without knowing it.

"Because it's pretty clear that you need me," Caitlin answered, right after she caught him trying to scratch the stitches over the bandage and slapped his hand.

"You could've left with Cisco," he pushed. "Or you could've just left, taken a break, found a new job. I am sure Dr. McGee could write you a very good recommendation letter…"

"Cisco has Gypsy, Barry. He doesn't need me. You do."

"Caitlin Snow, can you worry about yourself for a minute?"

Caitlin tried to soften her expression without losing seriousness, because 'life decisions' wasn't among her favorite morning topics.

"Do you _want me_ to leave, Barry?" she asked, giving him an ultimatum.

"I think you should," he replied, taking her by surprise. "I think it was easier to call this place a home when Cisco was with us… but now it's just you and me. You're stuck in this loop with me, everyday-"

"That's because you won't let me go out there with you."

"Not because you lack ability. In fact, something happening to you is the last thing I am worried about, because I've seen what you're capable of…”

"What's the problem then?"

"The problem is that once you go out there with me, you're gonna like feeling useful and helping people… I'm going to drag you to the bottom of this tragic hole I'm in: the hero's life," Barry recited, adding a hard, bitter laugh at the end. "In which you're doomed to make the hardest decisions and uncountable mistakes, no matter how good your intentions are. Also hurting those closest to you."

Caitlin noticed how Barry looked at the blue veins in her palms as he finished the last sentence. He was barely there again, unable to keep himself whole, because that would've meant feeling all the pain at once. She had already been there and done that.

"You'll never have the life you've always dreamed of if you stay here… or a home," he finished.

_You were dancing across the floor without burning bounds_

_Now you can't find your way home_

_Does anybody hear the words I say as I fall down?_

Saying that Barry wasn't pushing some buttons would've been a lie. It was true that sometimes she would fantasize about a life away from STAR Labs and its responsibilities and felt some relief, but, considering that she had experienced that relief twice already - staying away from the team - she knew it didn't last long. She didn't have a better place to be, and the universe had sent her that message multiple times through the years. Long periods away from Barry and the lab had a negative impact on her, to the point she had found herself watching the first Flash Day Celebration and H.R.'s funeral from a distance. Both times were different in circumstances and her quickness to return, but Barry's insistence on welcoming her back was always the same. That attitude had always shaken her to her core and made everything more difficult.

She couldn't stay away. She just couldn't.

"This is my home," the doctor corrected, with the most decided tone she had ever used to say those words. "This is where I keep coming back."

"Without Cisco, this is just building," Barry insisted, trying to catch Caitlin's eyes, but she didn't look up from her cup of coffee. "I won't stop you."

"I'm not liking this conversation."

Determined, Caitlin threw her legs to the side of the medical table and sat right next to her friend. She wasn't gonna let him close the door on her face again. Not this time.

"This is not just a building as long as you're here, Barry. Stop acting like you and I weren't close. You've been doing that ever since I came back and it's so annoying," she emphasized, rubbing her eyes with her fingers. "The worst part is that you haven't stopped being my friend, but you won't let me be _your_ friend. I've done everything I've could to put 2017 behind me. I've even been working on a hair dye product that makes me look brunette for more than two weeks."

Barry apologized with his eyes after laughing lightly at that last comment, but Caitlin smiled to show him she didn't mind. "This is our lives now… and what we do here means something, as hard as it is. You, better than anyone, know that we can't stand the idea of not doing anything with our abilities. So, if there's a real reason for you not wanting me here, just tell me."

Barry looked up at her, and their eyes aligned so perfectly that Caitlin felt something shake in her stomach and had to make efforts not to blink.

She could've sworn that was the first time he had looked her in the eyes since Cisco had left.

"I thought I was trying not to be selfish," Barry admitted. "But I have to be honest with myself, I was saying all this hoping that you had a reason to stay, that you weren't waiting for me to tell you to grab your things or something…"

"Wow", Caitlin let out, stunned, but satisfied with his sincerity. "Well, I have to be honest with myself: I just asked that question to know if you wanted me to stay."

Caitlin bumped Barry's shoulder with hers playfully, making him laugh.

"You scared the hell out of me last night, you know?" she said, and the memory erased any trace of laughter from her voice. "Please, next time… don't go out there without me if you know it's dangerous."

"I promise," he said with a low, deep voice. "God, Caitlin. I don't know what Cisco and I would do if you weren't here… I keep on kicking people out of my life, sometimes unintentionally… but you keep coming back."

What came next was prolonged and unfamiliar to her: Barry was glancing at her again, but it didn't seem like he wanted to tell her something. The trajectory of his eyes over her face was easy to follow, from her forehead to her eyes, from her right cheek to her left cheek…

From her nose to her lips.

_He was a steel bullet train vowing never again to cross state lines_

_Until she blew up the hills with her dynamite it burned his eyes…_

When she saw that that look in particular was lingering the most, Caitlin covered her mouth by instinct, feeling a little silly. It wasn't like Barry was looking at her cleavage or something, but he reacted like she had caught him doing it. He threw his head back, clearing his throat.

"Are we ever gonna talk about… that?" Barry asked, hesitantly.

"What?!" Caitlin exclaimed, a little loudly.

"About what I saw during my little trip to 2015… when I was trying to get that blood sample from Hannibal Bates."

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

"You mean that unnecessary trip you did after I told you I'd find a way to replicate the anti-polymerization serum," she hissed, hoping that Barry felt uncomfortable enough not to talk about the Everyman thing. Another topic they had been avoiding.

"Hey! Yes, I got there too early, but I hid and took the samples while he was sleeping. I even erased myself from the security cameras…" Barry defended himself, using his fingers to count all the precautions he had taken. "That's not the point... I saw you kissing him!"

"Ah, yeah, about that…"

"Why did you kiss… him?"

It was in that moment Caitlin knew she had five seconds to think how to sound and look as dignified as she could.

"Because I thought it was you," she answered, shrugging.

Her heart was beating so fast that she was starting to accept she would never look as calm as she was trying to. Suddenly, the idea of running far away from STAR Labs didn't seem so terrible.

"Yes, but…" Barry babbled, scratching the back of his head one more time. "What if it was me?"

"He transformed into you, came to me and kissed me." Caitlin's neutrality seemed unsettling to Barry, whose eyes were wide open.

"So… you wanted to kiss… _me_."

Caitlin let out an exasperated sigh and patted Barry on the back. One last attempt to keep the conversation platonic.

"If knowing that I had a crush on you like four years ago boosts your ego, I admit it," she teased confidently.

Barry snorted and looked up at the ceiling, smiling awkwardly. Caitlin felt a wave of satisfaction when she saw him blushing. He was so not expecting such honesty and now was way more embarrassed than her.

"Why didn't you say anything?" he asked.

This time, Caitlin could barely hide behind her smile. She was panicking.

"Barry, we found the future newspaper that day. I couldn't stand in the way of destiny," she explained, pronouncing the word 'destiny' with disdain. Now that they were at a dead end, she decided to slip a question through her defenses. "But there's something I don't understand… why did you ask Linda out instead of me after our karaoke night? Did we flirt a little bit in the hallway, or that was my imagination?"

Barry burst into laughter tensely, like she had just taken him by surprise again.

"No. That wasn't your imagination," he acknowledged. Caitlin knew she wasn't feeling that satisfied by the answer, but by the way he was still scratching the back of his head. He was so nervous. "It's just that, deep down, I knew that Linda was a rebound…" He turned his head and beamed at her. "You are no rebound girl, Cait."

"Barry Allen, how can you sound so sweet and so horrible while saying the same sentence?" Caitlin chuckled. "Anyway"—She palmed his knee and hopped off the medical table— "I found my not-so-dead fiancé right after that…so, it wasn't the time."

"It wasn't the time," Barry agreed.

It was so weird how Caitlin could feel comfortable talking about all that, but not with the way Barry was still looking at her. His knitted eyebrows, bright green eyes and crooked smile seemed to reflect… longing?

_She was a river boat queen, an American dream, for sure_

_Silver steeple of hope that kept the city alive through the war_

She swallowed.

"But hey, I'm over you!" she guaranteed happily, heading to the door. "I-I… I'll go grab a bite now, I think…"

Barry tilted his head like a curious puppy. He was still smiling, and Caitlin unexpectedly became too aware of how handsome he looked with that messy hair. The fact he was shirtless and hurt from a fight he had heroically (and recklessly) ran to wasn't helping her either. She felt a pang in her chest, her heart opening violently like a broken window, letting emotion course through her body.

She wasn't over him. Nope.

_Build a fire so big that it burns us all_

_Light a fire so big that it burns my soul_

When Caitlin was halfway out the door, a stream of air and lightning warned her to stop before she could bump into Barry, who had rushed in front of her to stop her.

"You still owe me something," he whispered, with that low, deep voice that didn't help Caitlin to clear her thoughts.

"You shouldn't be running, that thing is still open," she scolded him, pointing at the bandage. "And gosh, you're right. I owe you at least forty dollars from all that take out. I'll get my pur-"

Caitlin held her breath so hard that she couldn't finish the sentence, because Barry had just grabbed the back of her head gently and was now playing with her hair. Was it her or the temperature in the room had just rose to 100 degrees?

"I don't want you to pay me back. That's on me," he clarified, lowering his voice even more. "What I do want" —he brought his face closer to hers—"is something that was meant for me."

Just when Caitlin was starting to remember how to breath, Barry used his powers to shorten the distance between them and kissed her on the lips. It started as a gentle peck, but, when she felt Barry pushing persistently to deepen it, Caitlin pulled away breathlessly.

Her palms were burning against the skin of his chest.

"Barry, I…" she tried.

"Don't worry," he said, without letting go of her. He had the cockiest smile she had ever seen on him. "I know you gave him two."

Barry pulled her back against him and kissed her again. Caitlin couldn't fight that fluttering sensation in her stomach and her chest anymore. Her hands went under his arms and worked their way around his back. In response to the consent, he parted her lips with his tongue and deepened the kiss.

Caitlin didn't know how long they kept that going, or what it meant for their friendship, but everytime she tried to stop and clarify, Barry wouldn't let go.

"Ouch, ouch," he exclaimed, stepping back and lowering his hands to Caitlin's waist.

"What? Did I hurt you?" she panicked, looking down at his stomach.

"No, I just bit my tongue."

Classic. They both laughed with their foreheads together.

"I promise you I will fix things with Cisco," Barry said, rubbing his nose with hers. "You won't have to put up with me for much longer."

"Yeah, it's not like we wanted to be alone here," she sighed teasingly.

"Yeah, who would want that?"

Chuckling, Barry leaned his face to kiss Caitlin again, but she stopped him with her palm.

"You should let me brush my teeth," she said, wondering how bad their first make out session had tasted for him.

"You're perfect," he mumbled, kissing the tip of her nose. "Coffee breath."

"Ew."

"In case it wasn't obvious, I want to ask you out. Can I ask you out after I shower?"

"Oh, if you go to the bathroom…"

Caitlin grabbed something from a table and handed it to him.

"Well, this is the least romantic throwback ever," he joked, knitting his eyebrow at the sight of the plastic cup he was holding.

"I didn't mean to… it's a coincidence," Caitlin said, blushing violently when she realized that peeing in a cup was the first thing she had ever asked him to do. "I would feel better knowing that there are no traces of that poison in your system."

"Okay."

Barry lowered his head when he noticed Caitlin tiptoeing to kiss him on the cheek.

"You avoided my question," he pointed out.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to," she apologized. She still felt dizzy and disoriented from the recent events. "You know me, I sometimes don't know what to say."

"I know, but this is important." Barry pulled her even closer to him, like she wasn't already close enough. "Do you think _this_ is right? Don't you think we should discuss it, take it slow, or wait?"

Barry shrugged to imply that the ball was in her court now. Caitlin tiptoed once again and snaked her arms around his neck, smiling widely.

"I think we've waited long enough."

He let out an infectious grin and lifted her a few inches from the floor in celebration. Caitlin placed a sweet kiss on his mouth before requesting him to put her down, because she didn't want his stitches to tear open.

"I'll see you in… two seconds?" she calculated.

"I have to work," he groaned childishly.

"You're not going to work in your state. I'll write you a note."

"Wait, you can do that?"

"Yes."

"Don't you think I should've found out sooner?"

"You never asked."

They both laughed mischievously, and Caitlin doubted someone in that city was as happy as she was in that moment.

"And after the night we just had, I won't accept dates that don't involve blankets and a tv," she said, pointing at the medical table and the tv placed up on the wall. "Cisco hasn't changed his Netflix password. He'll know we watched Stranger Things without him. I can't think of anything better to break the ice."

"Wow, you're writing me notes to skip work and now this," Barry noted. "Never knew you were such a bad influence, Cait."

"Shut up."

They shared a shorter laugh this time, because there was something Caitlin had always wanted to know.

"Barry…"

"Uhm?"

"Why do you call me 'Cait'? You've seen me calling out anyone who-"

"I guess I never wanted to be 'anyone'," he interrupted her, putting his low voice and puppy head tilt to good use again. "And you allowed it."

Caitlin felt weak in the knees. Somewhere inside of her an awkward teenage girl was doing a happy dance because she was finally getting attention from the only guy she wanted it from. She needed to slow her down.

"I guess that I never wanted to you to be 'anyone'," she fired back and, just when she thought she had just embarrassed herself, Barry blushed and stuttered while trying to find a good flirty comeback.

That's how that day continued, confessing each other's feelings through wittiness. Caitlin didn't feel any less overwhelmed by the new displays of affection she was having with her teammate and friend, such as cuddling on the medical table without paying real attention to the show that was on… but there were certain things that existed beyond words, and that thing between them was one of them. Even if they were having a serious conversation or joking about being Netflix parasites, that something was always there and now there was no need to hold it back anymore. There was nothing anyone could throw at them that they haven't already heard, and tomorrow never seemed more promising for two people who had gone through so much together.

It was time.

_We're all falling down, no our feet never touched the ground_

_We're all falling down, no our feet never made a sound_

_We're all falling down, no our feet never touched the ground_

_We're all falling down_


End file.
